fauxflesh

Trope-a-Day: I’m a Humanitarian

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I’m a Humanitarian: There is, of course, absolutely nothing special about the tissues of sophont species – yours or others’ – that stops them from being grown as fauxflesh in a carniculture vat in the exact same way that any other tissues can.

It’s certainly, ah, outré (I believe is the polite word), and often considered exactly as decadent as it sounds, but it’s hard to see from an ethical perspective (or at least their ethical perspective) what exactly is wrong with it (No sophonts and indeed no non-sophont critters were harmed in the making of this food.), or why it ought to be illegal.  (Except for the copyright issue, of course – don’t try setting up your own range of, um, celebrity restaurants without the proper licenses.)

So, yes, you can go to sophophage restaurants.  You can leave off some cell samples a month or two in advance and go to autophage restaurants (see: Autocannibalism).  And in other areas, yes, you can have leather made from cloned skin, the Banks-style “ownskin suit” and other such products.

But even in this society, most people still think it’s kind of kinky.

Trope-a-Day: Future Food is Artificial

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Future Food is Artificial: Played straight in one area, but averted in two more, depending on which end of the food range you are sitting at.  Averted first because there still is plenty of natural food at the high to middle end of the range.  Sure, it’s expensive, because after the changes mentioned below and under Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap, the surviving – due to economics, not environmental issues – natural-food producers are practicing exotic types of organic farming to beat the vats on quality, and so are producing the equivalent of top-grade Kobe beef right across the food spectrum, but it’s not out-of-reach-of-the-average-person expensive.

At the middle to low end of the range, where the most commonly eaten food, the express food, the served-in-your-local-eatery food is found – well it’s somewhat artificial.  Which is to say that the vegetable products are grown hydroponically in vertical farms (for groundlings) or skyfarms (for spacers), and the fauxflesh and fauxfish came out of a carniculture vat – but is still indistinguishable for most purposes from an actual steak, say.  Same tissue, carefully stimulated to reproduce its natural environment – with the exception of being guaranteed free of bacteria, parasites, etc., etc.  But, of course, this is not what most people mean by ‘artificial food’.

Where it is played straight is at the low, low end of the market, where you can buy algiprote (made from Spirulina-like algae, comes in pressed bars), mycoprotein (made from modified fungus, comes in cubes, like tofu) and/or nutriyeast (made from yeast, and comes in… well, glop, like Marmite).  Nutritionally complete, unbelievably cheap to buy – even the manufacturing equipment is unbelievably cheap to buy – and will support life indefinitely on even the tiniest resource budget.

Which is not to say all yeast and fungus based products are like this; some are expensive luxury foods, but those take time, care, specialist nutrients and attention to detail to achieve high levels of quality and deliciousness.  These were engineered for robustness in the face of inattention and low-grade equipment, nutritional completeness if you’ve nothing else to eat, and minimal resource cost, and they taste like it, too.  Even processed and flavored, it does not take long at all living on algiprote, mycoprotein and nutriyeast before you’re craving something else.  Anything else.